Silent Monsters
by emilynoel11
Summary: "What happened to the sister?" Clint asks. "No idea. We're still trying to retrieve a lot of Strucker's data, but from what I've seen so far, it's very doubtful that she survived the experiments. It seems like he's the only one who did."
In.

Out.

In.

Out.

With his breathing steady, he lets the arrow slip from his fingers. As it flies, he turns, ducking behind a tree and waiting for the explosion. His fingers reach for another arrow.

The explosion doesn't come.

Confused, Clint looks back, fingers grasping the arrow and knocking it back as he goes, but all of a sudden his vision blurs. A split second later, a great force rams into him, sending him flying back.

He lands hard on his side and tries to roll to cushion his blow. Still, when he stops, his side is throbbing and he knows he will be feeling that in the morning. Thankfully, as he does a quick body check, he doesn't think anything is broken.

He looks up as the silver blur speeds across his vision again, but this time it slows just enough for him to make out the sight of a young man with silver hair breezing past. The man glances at him as he runs past, and a pair of icy blue eyes stare down at him.

There's something in that man's gaze that turns Clint's insides to ice.

He isn't sure what it is – he is gone in a flash of silver, too fast for even Clint's eyes to follow – but something about him doesn't sit right with Clint, tells him that the man is _dangerous_.

Suddenly, it is imperative that he get in contact with the others. He begins to get up, but pauses as his ears catch the sound of something starting to heat up. He glances up just in time to see a blaster being heated and _dives_ , beginning to roll frantically away.

The charge releases and he hears it slam into the ground behind him. His instincts tell him even without looking that it hit the exact spot he lay a second ago.

Completing the roll, he swings up onto his knees and draws an arrow in one fluid motion. It slips from his fingers, flies through the air, and a split second later, the machine disappears in a shower of sparks and metal pieces.

That finished, his hand flies up to his earpiece. "There is an enhanced in the field. I repeat, _enhanced in the field_."

"Yeah, I discovered that, thanks." Captain America's voice buzzes over the comm.

"Need backup?" Clint starts running towards Steve's last known location without waiting for the answer. He knows, somehow, that the silver-haired man is more dangerous than Steve probably expects.

"Nah, I think I – oomph!" The comm cuts out and Clint wills his legs to run faster, pushing down the leaden feeling starting to creep into them.

By the time Clint reaches him, Steve is on the ground and the enhanced is standing over him.

"What do you want with the Avengers?" Steve asks, trying to buy himself time to think up a plan of action.

The man doesn't reply, but he pauses long enough to give Clint time to get into position. He knocks an arrow and waits for the right moment to strike.

In, out. In, out.

The man steps forward to attack, but Clint lets the arrow fly.

This time he watches it arc through the air, and he knows it's going to hit its mark – it always does – yet somehow, faster than even Clint's eyes can catch, the enhanced turns and snatches it right out of the air.

It's only Clint's years of training and experience that lets him continue moving despite the shock. The enhanced's cold blue eyes search him out, but he is already up and moving. The man's eyes follow his movements, but this gives Steve the opening he'd been waiting for.

His legs sweep around, managing to catch the man unawares and send him crashing down onto his back. He lands hard, but is back on his feet again before Steve can finish the manoeuvre and pin him.

The two begin fighting hand-to-hand, but thanks to Steve's superhuman strength and agility, he manages to block the man's blows. However, it's an extremely close fight. The enhanced moves too quickly, not giving Steve the time to exploit any possible holes in his defenses, and Clint knows it's all he can do to avoid the majority of the blows.

The one good thing Clint can see is that while the enhanced has an incredible amount of speed, he doesn't seem to have increased strength, and he guesses that is what makes the fight between them so close.

He doesn't have time to ponder it much further, though, because he's finally in position again and needs to focus on hitting the enhanced and not his own teammate. He fingers the shaft, breathing steadily, and waits for the right moment to strike.

Finally, it comes. The man lands a series of quick blows on Steve that manage to make the warrior falter for a moment, but he pauses before starting the next series of strikes, and Clint takes this chance.

The arrow whistles through the air towards its target, but the man turns and snatches it out of the air before it can hit its target.

This time, the man's eyes meet Clint's, and he swears he sees a flash of amusement there. The enhanced gestures slightly towards him with the arrow, a hint of arrogance in his movements as if to convey that he couldn't believe Clint would try the same trick twice.

Clint had been counting on that very arrogance.

He slips another arrow from the quiver, and braces himself to run.

Three, two, one...

The arrow in the enhanced's hand explodes.

It's a small, localized explosion, and Clint had guessed – correctly – that the man was going to be able to let go of it fast enough that he wouldn't lose his hand, but it still causes a lot of damage.

The man reaches down, clutching his wrist with his other hand, wanting to stop the blood from gushing everywhere but obviously afraid to actually touch it. There's a look of obvious pain on his face, but no sound escapes his lips.

The distraction is long enough that by the time the enhanced looks back up at him, Clint is already racing across the clearing. At the same time, Steve's arms reach out and manage to grab hold of him.

He tries to fight the soldier, but a second later Clint is there, the tip of the arrow in his hand opening as he slams it down in the middle of the man's forehead. It immediately sends out a jolt of electricity and the enhanced eyes fly open, his body jolting and writhing.

The seizure lasts for a moment and then the man's body stills, falling limp as he falls unconscious, and Clint and Steve share a collective sigh of relief.

He rolls the man on his side so that he can bind his hands, then straightens up to look at Steve.

"Thanks, Clint." He says genuinely, but Clint just waves it off.

Glancing down at the man they'd captured, Clint finds it hard to believe he'd been such a threat. Upon closer inspection, it becomes obvious that despite the silver hair, the man is barely old enough to be considered an adult.

His body is slim in comparison to Steve, but it is well-toned, clearly all muscle. Even so, if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, Clint would never have believed that the kid could have held his own against Captain America.

Now that he had witnessed it, though, he couldn't get the images out of his head. As hard as it was to believe that such a young man was working for HYRDA, he couldn't deny what he saw. Even without taking the superhuman speed into account, the young man had fought with a grace that could only have come from being a trained killer.

And after seeing the look in his eyes, there was no doubt in Clint's mind that the kid was extremely dangerous. Even if it had been someone without enhanced abilities, that cold, calculating look he'd set on Clint would have set all of the archer's instincts screaming on full alert.

There had been no mistaking the cold, burning anger in the man's eyes. It had sent ice through his veins when he'd first seen it, and it was what made him triple-check the bindings on the man's hands now.

Those eyes had told Clint the man had nothing to lose, and that, more than anything, made him deadly and unpredictable.

That aside, though, Clint has an uneasy feeling about the enhanced that can't quite be explained only by his extraordinary powers and arrogant attitude. He's fought other enhanceds and hundreds of killers with more training than this kid, after all.

There's something else not quite right about the kid, but for a while Clint can't quite put his finger on it.

In a moment, Steve is back on his comm.

"We've captured the enhanced. Update."

It isn't until the mission is over and the enhanced is safely in Avengers custody that Clint realizes that during their entire altercation, the blue-eyed man hadn't said anything about his intentions.

He hadn't answered their questions. He hadn't demanded answers for himself. He hadn't even cried out when the bomb exploded in his hand or the electricity went coursing through his veins.

He hadn't said a single word.

* * *

A/N: Inspired by this quote: "You died screaming, yet the monster who took your place was silent." ~Unknown


End file.
